KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 37,415 businesses, mostly small and medium enterprises, have closed down following the Covid-19 pandemic, said the Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Minister Tan Sri Noh Omar.
“The Impact Study of the Movement Control Order 3.0 and the Entrepreneurial Landscape in Malaysia from June 15 to 28, 2021, shows that 37,415 businesses have ceased.
“Of the number, there were 26,007 micro-entrepreneurs and 2,738 small and medium enterprises,” Noh said in reply to a question from Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin (BN-Kinabatangan) during Question Time at the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday (Sept 28).
Bung had asked the ministry to state the efforts taken to ensure small and medium enterprises could face the onslaught of the pandemic.
Noh added that a task force has been formed at the ministry level to assist businesses post-pandemic.
“Through this task force, the ministry is taking immediate action in the short term under the 100-day KPI target by focusing on three key approaches,” he said.
Among them, the ministry will allocate RM7.06bil under 26 programmes (including moratorium) to help businesses and cooperatives which are affected by the pandemic. This will benefit 192,541 recipients.
It has also allocated RM40.4mil to assist those who have lost their jobs, youth and graduates as well as the disabled community to enter the entrepreneurship sector through 15 programmes. This will benefit 2,570 recipients. -The Star